


Big Surprises

by TheCreatorOfTales



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Can't put too much here or it will spoil it!, Comfort/Angst, F/F, Freakytits - Freeform, Riots, Shit Hits The Fan, Surprises, Swearing, Threats, Threats of Violence, give it a chance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29948742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCreatorOfTales/pseuds/TheCreatorOfTales
Summary: A riot breaking out at the prison brings big surprises for Will Jackson and the rest of Wentworth.
Relationships: Vera Bennett/Joan Ferguson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	1. Trouble Starts

**Author's Note:**

> It was stuck in my head! And it needed a place to live, so here we go!
> 
> This will be a short fic, only three chapters long, and will have a happier ending than how it starts. 
> 
> Let me know what you think?

It had all gone so wrong, so very quickly.

What had started as a brawl in the yard between two cliques of women, had turned into a full scale riot after a stray punch had hit an inmate completely unconnected with either group of prisoners. Within five minutes, every single inmate in the yard was shrieking, punching, biting or doing some form of damage to each other, and it spilt over to the housing units.

It had quickly become far more than the officers could handle on their own.

Linda and Fletcher had retreated, firstly to the officers’ breakroom, and had managed to get out of the building. Will had scaled a fence, careful to separate the barbed wire curled along the top to scrape through and had jumped to the gravel path, sprinting through the rest of the empty building and out of the staff exit, most of the commotion focused on the yard and the housing units.

They convened outside, where a news crew had appeared at the first hint of a riot, as had police when the automatic alert for outside help hadn’t been cancelled by the governor. Or her deputy. The police were firing off questions that Linda, Fletch and Will could only half answer. The crowd of concerned family and friends of the women inside Wentworth was steadily growing. They had no idea if Vera was safe, or if the Governor had managed to avoid the skirmish.

Will knew from past experience that the inmates would find their hidden weapons at the first sign of uncontained violence inside Wentworth, either as a way to protect themselves or as a way of inflicting more damage in melee.

Slowly, he noticed that more officers were able to scuttle out of the building, completely giving up in trying to stop or contain the riot. Whilst he knew that the governor could probably handle herself – he’d seen her physically pick up Jenkins two weeks prior to stop her beating another inmate to a pulp on Franky’s orders. But Vera was another worry entirely.

Petite, and dainty, Vera was able to defend herself in a fair fight, he knew that but she would definitely struggle against more than one person. She didn’t have it in her. Or at least, he didn’t think she did.

His worry grew as each officer scrambled out of the exits, both public and for the staff, and neither Governor Ferguson or Vera was among them. He grabbed one of the officers by the arm, as she’s holding a hand up to a gash on her cheek.

“Brenda! Any sign of Vera or Ferguson?”

“Nah, they were up in the office when it kicked off, a fucking cunt got me in the face with a fork!” She gestured at her face, and angry look flashing across her features. He directed her towards the two ambulances that had turned up as a just-in-case measure, and offered her a pat on her back as she left, turning his eye back to the entrance of the prison.

“Let me through!” A ruckus by the crowd of people being held back draws his attention. “Let me through!”

It’s a young man, early twenties, with a head of curly, dark hair and a darker skin-tone. He’s well built, judging by his stature, and tall. He’s carrying a backpack that Will guesses is full of books, seeing as he has a thick file in one arm, filled with paper. A dark navy ‘University of Melbourne’ hoodie is covering his torso, and he’s wearing a pair of expensive looking jeans and Converse. University student, obviously. Despite having one arm full, he’s doing his best to push past the smaller police officer.

Will can see that some members of the officer’s families are in the crowd, some of them are familiar. Linda’s sister is there, so is Fletch’s brother. But he’s never seen this kid before. Doesn’t even recognise any features on him to guess who he might be related to.

“Listen to me, she’s in there! I need to know that Joan Ferguson is alright! She wouldn’t leave her deputy behind either!”

The name of the governor makes him come closer, seeing the young man’s gestures become jerky and angry that the police officer is just shrugging off his concern.

“Listen mate, we have no confirmation that they’re still in ther-“ The police officer’s tone is arrogant, and he doesn’t get to finish his sentence when the other man interrupts him.

“How the fuck would you know?! You’ve been stood there since you got here!” The crowd agrees with the student, and Will has to agree. That particular officer has stood and tried to control the growing crowd, only getting side-tracked trying to flirt with one of the other officer’s worried daughters.

Hardly the time, or the place.

Will feels for the guy, he looks terrified as his gaze keeps landing on the exit to the prison, hoping that the next person to come outside will be the person that he’s looking for. He runs a slightly shaking hand through his hair, and then glares at the officer who is still standing in his way.

“Will!” Brenda’s voice calls him, bringing his attention to the woman now rushing towards him with adhesive stitches on the cut on her cheek, and her radio in her hand. “You’re gonna wanna hear this!”

Together they lean over the radio, and listen. 

It sounds like Gambarro, the raspy voice of the woman easy to recognise, even over the radio.

“ _Nah we got Bennett already_ … _we’ll use Vinegar Tits as bait to get Fergie out here…she won’t leave her to rot, not in a riot…”_ They had Vera? They can’t make out the next muttered words but they certainly hear the next, as does the young man blocked by the police officer.

“ _…once we get Fergie where we want her, we stick her with the garden spade we took from Doreen. Straight in the neck! She aint gonna know what’s hit her! Or stabbed her…!”_

The two officers look horrified at each other as they hear what the plan is. He didn’t particularly like Joan, or her policies, but he respected that she was willing to stand by her beliefs regardless of other’s opinions on them. They both knew that Joan wasn’t the most popular governor, but then governors were disliked on principle, they were the ones providing the discipline in the prison, after all.

“LET ME FUCKING THROUGH, YOU FUCKER!” There’s panic in the young man’s voice now, the radio had been louder than either of them had realised, and whilst the other people in the crowd are looking more worried, the university student is panicking at the new threat.

Both Will and Brenda immediately turn to the commotion, where the young university student has dropped his backpack and his folder, and is trying to rush past the officer, who looks like he’s struggling.

Despite his worry at the situation, the sight of the young man nearly sick with worry pulls at his heart strings.

“Bren, go tell the SESG that they need to get in there NOW.”

Nodding once, the woman runs off towards the gathering crowd of armed officers in black body armour and helmets. “You got it!”

Then, Will quickly walks towards the young man in the university sweatshirt, pulling him back by the arm and away from the potential arrest charge of assaulting a police officer.

“Hey, hey hey!” He steadies him with two hands on his upper arms, stilling the wide eyed and panicked young man. “Now, who are you and why do you need to know about the Governor?”

“I’m Shane.” He says, eyes still moving between the prison entrance and Will’s face. The kid is as tall as he is, but not quite as bulky. There’s definite strength in his arms, and Will thinks that if he wasn’t so worried, he could probably get past him.

“Alright, Shane.” He keeps his tone calm, deliberately using his name. “Why do you need to know about the Governor?” Will keeps his attention on him, trying to maintain eye contact, which is why he nearly drops his grip on the kid at what he says next.

“She’s my mum.”


	2. Shane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane thinks back about his mother, and the woman who's made her happy. 
> 
> Vera finally snaps at Linda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a mostly fluffy one! As I mentioned before, this is a quick fic, and we get Shane's perspective here. We get some background and some action too. 
> 
> We also get to see some bonding between Vera and Shane.

Shane had never questioned that Joan was his mother.

She’d never hidden the fact that he was adopted, had sat him down and explained to him as simply as she could when he’d come home from his first few days of his first year in school, as to why he didn’t look like her. A new friend in his class had commented that Shane didn’t look like his mother, that his mother had very pale skin and pin-straight hair, compared to his own darker skin tone and riotous curls, which the young boy had seen when Joan had dropped off her child at the school doors that morning.

Joan had told Shane that he was _hers_. Her boy, her son and that she would never have chosen anyone else to be her child.

When he’d asked how she’d chosen him, he remembers the far away look in her eyes, before she blinked and focused back on him.

_“I promised your mother, the woman who brought you into this world, that I would take care of you. When she died, I made sure that I would keep my promise, and I got you, love.”_

_“And you always keep promises, mama, you do!”_

_“That I do, darling. That I do.”_

_“Can I have some grapes please ?”_

And that had been that.

She’d been by his side when he’d fallen off the monkey bars in the park and had needed four stitches in his forehead when he was five. When he developed meningitis as six, she’d been there, comforting and steady, even if she did sit at his bedside unable to sleep because she was sick to the stomach with worry for him. The first time a girl had broken his heart, she’d made hot chocolate and tucked him into her side and they watched old movies. Then, when a boy had broken his heart, she’d done the same.

Solid. Steady. Proving time and time again that she was his mother in every sense of the word.

He remembers when he was seventeen, and one of the other students had decided that they would hurl a racial slur at him and throw a punch. Shane had come out of that fight as the winner. But Joan had erupted when he got home, seeing the black eye and bloody knuckles. She’d cleaned him up, fed him and dropped a kiss on his forehead before stalking out of the door of their home, car keys in hand.

She’d come home two hours later with bloody knuckles of her own. And the student’s father had turned up the next morning to drop off his son with a bruised face and a swollen cheekbone.

He never finds out what she did to him, despite the many times that Shane asked about it. But the student avoided him like the plague. Shane asks one final time when he got home from school and Joan offers him a soft look and a ruffle of his hair.

_“I provided an education, is all.”_

Her knuckles are bruised for some time, and it affects her fencing ability for a few weeks, so for her birthday, Shane saves up and presents her with custom-made, black leather gloves. He knows that she hates wearing latex gloves in work, and think that the black gloves are a lovely alternative. The fact that they would also provide good protection for her knuckles if she needed it went unsaid.

He was in his third year of university now. Law student, wanting to go on to do a master’s degree. He bounced between the student apartment he shared with his friends, and his home with his mother.

When she’d introduced him to Vera, he’d smiled and offered a friendly wave as he was caught in the act of sneaking his laundry into the washing machine. Then, Vera was there more often when he came home to visit. She’d caught him once, eating some of the still steaming lasagne straight from the dish that had been on the counter with a fork. He’d looked at her guiltily, frozen in place, but all she’d done was smile, reach for a plate and scooped a decent sized portion onto it, handing it over to him.

“ _Hungry?”_

_He nodded, mouth full of his pilfered portion of lasagne. The dish now had a small fork sized hole in one corner, making the petite woman’s mouth quirk up into a smile._

_“Well, you don’t need to sneak around to have some. Joan said you’d probably be around tonight, needing to use the wifi. So I made enough for all three of us, just in case.” She walked around him as she spoke, grabbing a plate and a large spoon, gently moving him out of her way when needed. “Big assignment due?”_

_He nodded. “Contract law, seven thousand words.” At her raised eyebrows, he’d shrugged. “I’ve got all of it done, it’s just a case of looking over it now for any small mistakes. Mum usually ends up reading over it, she can’t help herself.” They share a smile, both of them knowing how Joan loved reading about new topics, or educating herself further on subjects that she already knew. She preferred academic papers and non-fiction to made up stories that she couldn’t get into._

_“What would you have done if I hadn’t come? With the food, I mean.” He’s curious, and she carefully uses a dish towel to lift the lasagne dish into the still warm oven, to stop the food from going cold. Vera would wait until Joan came home from her shift, to eat with her._

_“It would have gone into Tupperware, and you would have pilfered it the next time you came.” They share a laugh, Shane lifting another forkful of lasagne to his mouth._

_“She’s very proud of you.”_

_Shane smiles. “I know. I’m not one to get overly emotional, Vera.”_

_She watches him carefully, wondering what his point is. He speaks with the same speech patterns as his mother._

_“Please don’t hurt my mum.”_

_Vera shares a look, and a soft smile at him. “That is a promise that I can make.”_

He’d been sat at his desk in his apartment bedroom the next day when he realised that Vera knew exactly where every kitchen utensil had been stored, not needing to ask. He was happy that his mother had found someone.

And so, Vera became a firm fixture in his life for the past year, too.

He thought that she and Joan were very well suited. Vera softened the sharper edges of his mother, and Joan hardened some of the parts of Vera that were too soft.

He’d never tell them, but he’d let himself in with his key late one night, desperately needing decent internet to submit his assignment. He’d found them in the living room, asleep and curled around each other, with the tv still on. He’d smiled, covered them with a blanket from the linen cupboard, and turned off all the lights and the tv.

Neither woman had said anything when he’d sleepily wandered through to the kitchen the next morning, yawning and stretching. Vera had placed a mug of coffee in front of him, as Joan slid a plate with a bacon sandwich over to him. As tired as he was, he _did_ notice that Vera was wearing one of his mother’s silky robes, the hem nearly dragging along the floor.

So when one of his roommates came rushing into his bedroom, with her phone in her hand and gesturing wildly, as he was settling his backpack on his back to go to his lecture, whilst shouting about prisons and riots, his blood had run cold. There, on the newspage was the headline that a riot had broken out at Wentworth, forcing the staff to retreat out of the building where they can.

He’s in his car and speeding towards his mother’s workplace within ten minutes, worry churning in his gut for the two women. He’s so stressed about the situation that he doesn’t take off his backpack, and drives with is still on his back.

* * *

“She’s your _what?”_

“She’s my _mother.”_ He glares at the man in front of him, who’s looking at him in shock and still holding onto his biceps. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Shane has too much respect, too much love in him for his mother to simply stand aside and let some officer think that he can stare at him in disbelief because he’s told him that she is his mother. He knew her reasoning with her work, she kept all personal details away from her workplace, knowing how dangerous some of the inmates could be.

“ _I’m not willing to risk you, love. So, if its an emergency, call me there, but you’ll have to explain to them who you are because I’m not going to expose you as someone that can be used to get to me. I wont put you at any risk.”_

He’d thought that she was overreacting, to begin with. And then, one inmate had mafia connections, and they tried to intimidate her into doing their bidding by threatening her. But they had no idea about him. Shane had realised that she would have co-operated with them immediately if they’d gotten a hold of him. So he only called her personal phone in an emergency, and texted her when she wasn’t in work. 

She might not be willing to risk his safety, but he wasn’t willing to risk hers, either.

It was why her relationship with Vera was a heavily guarded secret inside the prison walls. Shane kept that secret for her, too. It wasn’t a hardship.

The man didn’t have a nametag, so he doesn’t bother trying to figure out his name. His words are spoken bitingly, with a glare.

“ _Where. Is. My. MOTHER_?”

The officer in front of him can’t answer him, and Shane isn’t surprised. He watches as the man opens his mouth, to say something else, when the main doors to Wentworth crash open, and Vera is there, covered in blood, and half dragging his mother out into the open. Joan, is partially slumped over, leaning onto Vera heavily, with an arm tightly clasping at the right side of her waist, which is stained red. She’s missing her blazer, which is unusual for her, but it also highlights her injury. Whatever she’s been hit with, has done enough damage to make the two of them look like they’ve walked from the set of a police drama. Vera doesn’t appear to be harmed, beyond being shaken and some slight bruising that appeared to be darkening on her throat. His mother looks to be in worse shape.

“I NEED AN AMBULANCE! NOW!” Shane doesn’t even bother looking at the office next to him. He shoves past, taking the man by surprise and sprints towards the two women, joined by two paramedics who immediately take the taller woman away from Vera as soon as they get close enough, placing her very quickly onto a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, slamming the doors closed and speeding away wite the blue lights flashing.

He stares after it, in shock as he watches it turn the corner and disappear. Soft sniffling next to him makes him turn, and sees Vera with her arms curled around herself, bottom lip wobbling and a streak of blood on her left cheek. He holds out his arms, and she falls into them, quietly sobbing and he can feel her shaking as she wraps her arms around him, holding him tight. He’s taller than her, so he tucks his chin on the top of her head.

They stand there, clasping each other for comfort, worrying. He stands back after a moment, and takes a look at her neck. There is bruising on her throat, he’d been right, but he realises what the marks are as he looks at them.

_Handmarks. Someone had tried to throttle her._

He glares towards the prison building. Then looks back at her, the woman who’d made his mother smile more.

“Honestly, I’m fine.” She reassures him, patting the arm that he’s wrapped around her shoulders. She sniffs again, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Your mum, she stopped them. But they got her with a shiv.”

Her voice wobbles. “And then they were too quick…and I didn’t manage to stop them…and I-there was so much blood and…and….I’m so fucking _sorry_ , Shane.”

He’s confused. Why would she need to sorry? It was highly unlikely that Vera had started the skirmish, or the riot.

“I should have kept her s _afe!_ Should have been able to stop them myself…” She can’t finish her sentence, and she's breathing too quickly, almost heaving as Shane wraps her up in a tight hug again and she clutches at the back of his sweatshirt.

“You did just fine, Vera.” He speaks softly, the same way he would to Joan when it was the anniversary of his birth mother’s death and she was reminded of the date. “You did good.”

She’s shaking still, but the harsh sobs had subsided. They don’t need to be hanging around here now, they need to be following Joan to the hospital. She would need them there.

“So ya got a boytoy, huh, Vera?” The teasing comes from a blonde woman with her hair in a ponytail, looking worse for wear with a black eye. Shane can feel Vera’s back becoming ramrod straight, and she pats his back once, as if to say ‘ _let me go.’_ Shane does.

Vera turns on her heel to face the blonde, who’s stood a safe distance away.

She raises one hand, and points a finger at her, and the blonde loses her cocky stance, realising that in some way, _she’s fucked up._

“You watch what you say about my boy.” The petite deputy snarls. Shane is too old to really need another mother, but she’s treated him like he was hers, regardless. Shane blinks at her admission. He hadn’t wanted her to feel pressured, but they did have a close relationship, similar to what he had with his mother. Vera Bennett had managed to worm her way into his mother’s life, and his. He knew that when he put his key in the lock for his childhood home, that Vera was there, probably with food, made with love. She had the uncanny ability to know when he would come home for a little while. And she always made enough for him to take back to campus, although he was capable of cooking for himself.

In his little moment of reflection, Vera has walked forward to get into the blonde’s face, who has taken two steps back to avoid the wagging finger.

“You watch what you say about my boy, Linda. Understand?”

The blonde officer backs away from Vera’s heated glare and towards the other officers crowded around the back of one ambulance, waiting their turn to have their small injuries seen to. Vera turns back to Shane, she nods once at him, a determined glint in her eyes.

“Let’s go find your mum.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I appreciate every comment and kudos <3 thank you for them all <3

**Author's Note:**

> As always, kudos and comments are always appreciated, and I am thankful for every one of you that read my works <3


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